Employees Of One Burger Machine Stand Working 100-Hour Shifts

If you thought your overtime hours were bad, wait till you read about the what the employees at these popular 24/7 burger stalls have to put up with...

For many of us, overtime hours are just a normal part of the job. But Burger Machine employees working overtime are taking it to a new level, with some allegedly working up to 100 hours.

Yes, you read that right. These employees are working for 100 hours straight. That's more than 4 days of no real rest.

Filipino Facebook user Alexandra Craig Yulo was walking home in Makati, Metro Manila one night when she stopped to buy french fries at a Potato Corner stand. While her order was being prepared, she overheard a conversation between the Potato Stand employee and the employee at the adjacent Burger Machine stand.

Source: Facebook/Alexandra Craig Yulo

Here's how the conversation went, as Yulo summarised in a Facebook post that has since gone viral:

Potato Corner employee: "Is she coming?" (Referring to the Burger Machine employee taking over the next shift)

At this point, Yulo had to say something. A 48-hour shift? Two days without sleep or showers?

Shocking details of Burger Machine employees working overtime

The Burger Machine employee — who Yulo found out was named Rose — said that she went to work the previous night at 9:30 pm, and was supposed to go home at 9:30 that night. But if her replacement doesn't come, she'd have to cover her shift until 9:30 the next night.

Yulo wrote that her hunger disappeared from pity. She was shocked at how casually Rose was talking about her work hours, as if her bleak situation was normal. Upon seeing her shocked face, the Potato Corner employee said: "That's nothing. The person before her worked for 100 hours."

How much are they paid?

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Rose would be paid only PHP350 (S$9) for an 8-hour shift. And she wasn't always paid for her overtime hours.

When she felt ill and texted HR "rescue", HR would reply "your replacement is coming", but the replacement wouldn't come until the next day.

Could she have closed the stall and gone home anyway? Rose recounted an instance where one person closed the stall because she couldn't take it any longer, and was sued by the company because they said something went missing.

She noted that not all Burger Machine stalls work this way as others are franchises and dealers. But this particular stall was operating directly under the company.

As of this writing, Yulo's post has been shared over 38,500 times, with over 73,000 reactions. Burger Machine has yet to release a statement in reaction to Yulo's post, but according to comments on the post, it seems as if the company's HR has held an emergency meeting with its employees.

Hopefully Yulo's post served as a wakeup call to Burger Machine to fix their policies and make sure that their employees are treated fairly.

What do you think of this story of Burger Machine employees working overtime for long hours?